Landscape Designer, Grow Outdoors South Carolina

Founded in 1936, the National Wildlife Federation has grown into America's largest and most trusted grassroots conservation organization with 52 state and territorial affiliates and more than seven million members and supporters, including hunters, anglers, gardeners, birders, hikers, campers, paddlers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages and stripes. The mission of the National Wildlife Federation is to unite all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in our rapidly changing world. We advance this mission through programming focused on conserving wildlife, restoring habitats and waterways, expanding outdoor opportunities, connecting children with nature, advancing environmental justice, and addressing the causes and consequences of climate change.

An initiative of NWF, Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) envisions a world where every young child experiences nature daily. Launched in 2017, ECHO has been working with communities throughout the United States to transform children’s daily environments by enhancing opportunities to engage meaningfully in nature. By providing a combination of thoughtful landscape design and professional development opportunities for early childhood professionals, ECHO employs a health equity model that improves access to the benefits of nature for the children and caregivers who face the greatest barriers.  In turn, naturalized play settings improve environmental health by helping to mitigate the impacts of extreme temperatures, weather events, and air pollution on young children and their caregivers.

To meet our mission, we are seeking a Landscape Designer for Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) to support the application of this model through the Grow Outdoors South Carolina (GO SC) initiative.  A collaborative effort of the Division of Early Care and Education at the SC Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention at the SC Department of Public Health (DPH), Grow Outdoors South Carolina aims to transform early childhood outdoor spaces into naturalized environments that spark play and learning. The Landscape Designer will report to the Senior Landscape Design Manager, Landscape Design - Grow Outdoors South Carolina, based in Columbia, South Carolina. This position will serve as part of a highly functioning, highly integrated four-person team. This term assignment will last from approximately October 2025-August 2028 and will be expected to work 40 hours per week. If additional funding is secured, there is a strong possibility of extending this term, expanding the scope of work, and/or rehiring in 2028.

Principle Duties (major areas of responsibility):

The Landscape Designer will collaborate with the ECHO team to develop landscape designs, supplemental materials and graphics, and support other programmatic needs. Design will focus primarily on the outdoor play and learning spaces located at licensed childcare centers throughout South Carolina.  The position will be expected to apply evidence-based, best practice design principles to a variety of site contexts and create developmentally appropriate, custom design solutions driven by the programmatic needs of the clients and site users. The candidate should be able to communicate design concepts and ideas through hand sketching, graphics, and rendering skills, have a strong attention to detail, have excellent organizational skills, be flexible, and have strong technical skills (grading, construction knowledge).

• Support design work including preparation of base maps, illustrative plans, schematic designs and planting plans for sites
• Collaborate with the GO SC team to develop content for and deliver community presentations, training and professional development offerings for educators, and various community engagement workshops and activities.
• Develop opinion of probable cost calculations and phasing recommendations.
• Communicate with clients including setting up meetings for site visits, design reviews, and design delivery presentations.
• Support coordination of site visits, perform site analysis, conduct site measurements and photo documentation. This will include locating and verifying available site data from multiple sources, evaluating existing conditions, and conducting detailed photographic mapping.
• Support facilitation of participatory design workshops and training events.
• Plan, procure materials for, and assist with volunteer workdays.
• Provide ongoing construction technical assistance to site representatives (on call support).
• Support project management and collaborate to ensure progress towards design delivery timelines and goals.
• Prepare supplemental material for grant reports, including charts, diagrams, and booklets.
• Maintain cloud-based filing systems for all project related components an